This invention relates to a precision shear for the removal of material from metallic parts, and more particularly, to a precision shear which has the ability to remove undesirable machining tabs from finished metallic parts in a quick and efficient manner.
Many aerospace aluminum and titanium parts are fabricated by machining from a solid billet or hand forging. In most cases the finished part is held in place by leaving a surrounding frame of solid material and leaving tooling tabs to hold the finished part within the surrounding frame. Typically this picture frame is cut away with a band saw, abrasive wheel or other method. Then the remaining sections of the tooling tabs must be cut away. This is typically done by hand grinding and sanding operations.
The deburring and finishing of the tooling tabs can be a time consuming process and can consume as much as 20% of the total cycle time for fabricating a part.
Currently removing tooling tabs from a picture-framed metallic machined part requires die grinding and hand sanding operations. These hand operations can be time consuming, hazardous and imprecise. Grinding operations produce fine metallic particles and special stations must be used to collect and dispose of these particles to prevent inhalation.
As can be seen, there is a need for a device that can quickly and precisely remove the unwanted portions of a work piece. There is also a need for a simple and efficient means to remove tooling tabs from a picture-framed metallic part. Moreover, there is a need for a finishing method that quickly and precisely cuts away the tooling tabs leaving only the finished part and does not require additional hand blending or sanding operations. In addition, there is a need for significantly reducing or completely eliminating the airborne particles produced in finishing operations.